Meetings are an everyday occurrence in the business world. Technology has touched almost all aspects of how we communicate during these meetings, from video conferences to video presentations on notebook computers. However, despite the advances, the way that we deal with issues that are raised during meetings has not changed significantly.
Issues raised during a meeting are typically written down by interested parties on a notepad. Unless an issue is central to the progression of a project, however, it is often overlooked, forgotten, or lost. Even if the issue is important, if it is not immediately assigned to an individual and given a suspense date, it may not be pursued any further.
If issues are not clearly assigned to individuals, it is possible for issues to be intentionally worked on by two separate parties. This is called "rework," and results in an unnecessary expenditure of valuable work time. This may be more common in a larger project where there are many small issues that are critical to solving a much larger issue. A party may invest time to resolve an issue, not knowing that a different party had previously resolved that issue while working on a related issue. This may result in a waste of valuable work time.
With the plethora of issues that may be raised during a meeting, even if an issue is assigned to an individual, it may be difficult for managers to remember what issues were assigned and to whom they were assigned. Without some sort of reminder, the assigned parties may forget about their assigned issues. Therefore, a need has arisen for a new method and apparatus for issue tracking that overcomes the disadvantages and deficiencies of the prior art.